September 25, 2013 – RI Future

September 25, 2013September 25, 2013

RIDE to participate in NECAP debate

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RIDE has finally decided to participate in the statewide debate over high stakes testing as Andrea Castaneda, the staffer in charge of school performance, will participate in a panel discussion with advocates against the NECAP graduation requirement.

She will be joined by Jim Vincent, of the Providence NAACP, Rick Richards, a former RIDE accountability specialist and JoAnn Quinn, of the Autism Project, Ron Wolk, former vice president at Brown University and founder of Education Week Magazine and Bob Mattis, director of special education at St. Mary’s Home for Children.

It is being organized by Jean Ann Guliano and Bob Houghtaling, both of whom have been vocal opponents of the new graduation requirement. Houghtaling and Richards have both authored posts for RI Future on the NECAP test.

It will be at Warwick City Hall at 6:30 on Wednesday, Oct. 2.

Initially, the event was to be held in East Greenwich but school officials asked Houghtaling to hold it elsewhere. Houghtaling works for the town in the East Greenwich schools. Guliano and Quinn are both East Greenwich residents. Houghtaling invited Education Commissioner Deborah Gist, who declined to attend.

Here’s the press release sent from Guliano:

In response to the vigorous statewide debate over the use of the NECAP test as a high school graduation requirement and a broader national debate over standardized testing, two youth advocacy groups have planned a community forum to discuss the issue.

The forum is scheduled for this Wednesday, October 2nd at 6:30 pm and will be held at Warwick City Hall in the Council Chambers.

A number of panelists will present views on the issue from a variety of perspectives. Audience members will then have an opportunity to ask questions of the panelists.

Forum organizer, Bob Houghtaling, a Warwick resident and the Director of the East Greenwich Substance Abuse program stated, “This is an extremely important issue affecting all students. Parents, students and educators have many concerns related to the use of standardized testing and are seeking more dialog on the issue.”

September 25, 2013September 26, 2013

Why libertarians should defend me

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If tea party extremists ran Rhode Island I would still be a fugitive from justice.

North Kingstown conservative Doreen Costa brought the Providence Journal’s attention to my traffic stop last weekend. But she also voted against the reason for my traffic stop during the last legislative session. According to a police report, I was detained because an East Greenwich officer noticed I wasn’t wearing my seat belt while we were both stopped at a red light. Costa voted against a bill that allows police officers to make a traffic stop based primarily on not wearing a seat belt.

According to State House lawyer Richard Raspallo:

“Doreen Costa voted against the primary seatbelt bill 6/29/2011. She again voted against removing the sunset on 5/9/2013, and against the Sub A (lowering the fine to $40.00) that passed after the bill came back from the Senate on 6/28/2013. I believe she agreed with the lowering of the fine, but since she was against the primary seatbelt law to begin with, she voted against the bill as a whole, not really against the idea of lowering a fine alone.”

Earlier this year, she told Matt Allen: “We have to stop controlling every single move we make in this state,” she . “If someone wants to get in the car and not buckle up, that’s their responsibility. The government can’t be controlling what people want to do.”

Justin Katz, who first publicized my run-in with The Law, was also a strong opponent of seat belt violations being a reason for police to pull over a driver – and he’s pointed out to me several times that a more libertarian society would have done me well. Perhaps, though one barometer will be whether or not I learned me lesson.

Katz, to his credit, has been really respectful and very professional throughout my public shaming. It was a good get on his part, and I can’t say I wouldn’t publicize his arrest either. He even wrote on his blog that I’m not a terrible person … or at least not based on my public record, I’m not!

With the possible exception of the recent drug charge (depending on your politics), progressive blogger Bob Plain’s rap sheet is essentially a story of failure to comply with rules and hardly indicates a criminal mentality. It is, rather, evidence of the obstacle course of compliance that modern life has become.

I’m not sure how I feel politically about a seat belt snafu being a primary offense but we both agree that drug laws should be reformed. Maybe RI Future and Anchor Rising can find a way to work on that issue together?

September 25, 2013September 25, 2013

TPP would be ‘truly unprecendented secrecy’

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The progressive community in Rhode Island has been noting with increasing concern the secrecy surrounding negotiations for the “Trans-Pacific Partnership” or the TPP, a proposed new trade agreement with countries all over the world.

According to this Alternet article, the pact would be “so intrusive that it would even limit how governments can spend tax dollar” is near completion and likely to be passed without members of the U.S. Congress and Senate knowing what it contains?

It is a case of “truly unprecedented secrecy.”

Therefore, it was with great relief that we read Senator Elizabeth Warren’s letter to the prospective U.S. Trade Representative, Michael Froman, on the lack of transparency of those negotiations. At last, a legislator was courageous enough to bring this enormous elephant into the room of public discourse!

From leaked information over the last three years it has become clearer and clearer that, as it stands, TPP will be a giveaway to corporate interests on an unprecedented scale and will undermine any remaining power the federal government retains in regulating issues of labor and food/pharmaceutical/water safety as well as oversight of the financial industry. Senator Warren puts the situation succinctly:

“If transparency would lead to widespread public opposition to a trade agreement, then that trade agreement should not be the policy of the United States.”

We in the progressive community implore Rhode Island’s congressional delegation to take this matter seriously and join with Senator Warren in calling for transparency from the Obama administration on an issue that will profoundly affect the global economy for decades to come.

To: The Honorable Senators Reed & Whitehouse; Representatives Langevin & Cicilline
From: Constituents of Rhode Island
September 18, 2013:

We are writing about a matter vital to the interests of the work you are doing to bring jobs and prosperity back to the state of RI.

In June we outlined for you the danger we saw in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)—the new “free trade” agreement. The negotiations for the TPP have been conducted for the last 3 years without congressional or public input or participation.

In that letter we referred to the extreme secrecy in which negotiations were being held; secrecy even from members of congress. We quoted Senator Elizabeth Warren in her open letter to prospective U.S. Trade Representative, Michael Froman,
“ If transparency would lead to widespread public opposition to a trade agreement, then that trade agreement should not be the policy of the United States”

She wrote this letter after she and Alan Grayson asked to read the treaty. (Of the two, only Rep. Grayson was allowed to read it, because he agreed to sign a statement promising not to talk about what he had read. One wonders whether Sen. Warren’s letter was due to her refusal to sign such a promise)?

Today we are even more concerned because this week the Obama Administration is expecting the Congress to grant the President “Fast Track” authority on the TPP. As you are well aware, with fast tracking, the President, not Congress, would control the legislative process for the TPP. Study time would be severely limited and “Debate” would last a few hours. No amendments–only an up or down vote–would be allowed.

According to Lori Wallach of Tradewatch.org, trade officials have revealed that, as currently negotiated, the TPP would give foreign and multinational corporations wide and unprecedented power, (essentially nullifying the power of the U.S. congress), in any number of areas by filing claims against us before an international corporate tribunal, over any national or state regulations and laws they claim might infringe on profitability–attacking protections for the environment, employees, and consumers in areas such as food and water safety, access to medicines and human rights and internet freedom as well as financial ovewrsight. This should be totally unacceptable to you, as it is to us. TPP would ban buy American and completely reverse all of your recent hard work in bringing jobs home to RI.

All such international partnerships should be open to full debate, committee review, and public input. Therefore we strongly urge you to vote against fast tracking the Trans-Pacific Partnership as well as voting against this so-called treaty that goes far beyond trade issues. Thank you.

Sincerely,
Lisa Roseman Beade
RIPDA

September 25, 2013September 26, 2013

Providence College nixes lecture on gay marriage

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In what can only be called a blow to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry, Providence College has rescinded an invitation to philosopher John Corvino of Wayne State University because his lecture would be in support of marriage equality and “Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles.”

Corvino is a nationally known proponent of LGBTQ rights, and frequently engages in friendly debates with marriage equality opponents such as Maggie Gallagher, former head of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM.) In the interest of balance, Corvino had arranged for Dr. Dana Dillon, from Providence College’s theology department, to follow his presentation with a short talk on the Roman Catholic Church’s position on marriage. Provost Hugh Lena, in canceling the event, nixed this idea, saying, “it is simply not fair to [Dr. Dana] to give her less than one week of preparation opposite someone who has been lecturing on this issue across the United States for years.”

As Corvino points out in his response to Provost Lena,

As a fellow scholar I am offended on Dr. Dillon’s behalf. If she felt unprepared to respond, she could easily have declined. For her provost to declare her unprepared, however, is an affront to scholarly autonomy and academic freedom.

Also, Corvino maintains,

It also does not speak well of Provost Lena’s confidence in his philosophy and theology departments that he believes that no one there can persuasively articulate the Catholic position on marriage with a week’s notice.

Corvino may have a point here. During the public testimony phase of this year’s marriage equality debate in both the State Senate and the House, doctors and professors of philosophy and theology spoke five times. Their testimony was often off-topic, rushed and confusing. Professor Matthew Cuddeback, Dr. Gary Culpepper and Dr. Giuseppe Butera presented theology, philosophy and sophistry as a muddled, incoherent mess of unconvincing and unpersuasive ideas.

What these videos demonstrate is that John Corvino’s hunch that Provost Lena lacks confidence in his philosophy and theology department’s ability to articulate cogent and on point arguments against marriage equality may be right on target. If the three representatives of Providence College who testified at the State House are among the best Providence College has to offer, Provost Lena may be right to to believe, as Corvino suggests, that “no one there can persuasively articulate the Catholic position on marriage with a week’s notice.”

PC’s cancelation of John Corvino’s appearance highlights the difficulty if not impossibility of presenting both a “well rounded” and “religious” education. The two ideas work at cross purposes, forming an almost irresolvable paradox. As Corvino states it, towards the end of his response,

My impression, however, is that Providence College actively avoids the airing of views that challenge the Church’s traditional teaching on marriage. The provost seems to want to have it both ways: the appearance of a commitment to vigorous academic dialogue, combined with an isolationist approach to disfavored views; in other words, a Catholic identity defined primarily by what it excludes rather than what it includes.

I suspect the true reason John Corvino is not being allowed to speak at Providence College is because Provost Lena knows what most of us already suspect: Opponents of marriage equality don’t have any good arguments. Their theological concepts might sound good to their fellow Catholics (though polling data indicates otherwise) but what possible argument can be made, in a free society that values freedom of conscience and separation of church and state, for imposing one person’s theology on someone else? Rather than playing a losing hand, Lena decided to tip over the card table while complaining about the unfairness of the rules.

Truth Wins Out has condemned the dis-invitation of John Corvino, and are asking people to “Please give Dr. Hugh Lena a piece of your mind and tell him to invite John Corvino back to Providence College to speak about marriage equality.” You can email Provost Lena at hlena@providence.edu

September 25, 2013September 25, 2013

Nichols, McChesney talk ‘Dollarocracy’ at Brown

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There’s a great free event at Brown next Wednesday, about the biggest threat to American democracy — and how we can fix it. It’s cosponsored by a number of great orgs, including mine: Demand Progress.

Join Nation magazine DC correspondent/MSNBC contributor John Nichols and renowned communications scholar Robert McChesney for a discussion of their new book:

Dollarocracy: How the Money

and Media Election Complex Is

Destroying America

When: 7:00pm Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Where: Smith-Buonanno Hall, Brown University, Room 106

95 Cushing St. (corner of Cushing and Brown)

Admission: FREE

When President Barack Obama was reelected, some pundits argued that, despite unbridled campaign spending, here was proof that big money couldn’t buy elections. The exact opposite was the case. The 2012 election was a quantum leap: it was America’s first $10 billion election campaign. And it solidified the power of a new class in American politics: the fabulously wealthy individuals and corporations who are radically redefining our politics in a way that, failing a dramatic intervention, signals the end of our democracy. It is the world of Dollarocracy.

Event cosponsored by Brown Democracy Matters, DemandProgress.org, and RI Progressive Democrats of America.